


wish you were gay

by doodlingstories



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Angst, Bisexual Peter Parker, Character Death, Grief/Mourning, Multi, Tony Stark Lives, Unrequited Love, also tony never sold the tower because fuck that, if they kill tony in endgame im gonna be in denial, morgan and pepper are also in this because i love them, oh my god its so angsty, some action not much lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-21
Updated: 2019-04-21
Packaged: 2020-01-23 03:51:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18541693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doodlingstories/pseuds/doodlingstories
Summary: Peter is 16 when he finds out he likes Ned.“Betty asked me out!”Too bad Ned doesn’t like Peter back.or; Peter loves Ned but Ned doesn't love him back.





	wish you were gay

**Author's Note:**

> title is from the billie eilish song and yes i know it's not actually a song about being gay but i dont care i do what i want!
> 
> un-betaed (as usual)

Peter is 14 when he finds out he’s bisexual.

Sort of. He’s always kind of known he liked boys, but had always figured that _that_ particular interest was a problem for another day. After all, he did like girls too, so it wasn’t too difficult to just ignore it. 

The day he figures it out, he’s sitting on Ned’s couch watching Star Wars for the umpteenth time. 

Han Solo comes on screen and the first thought that comes to mind when Han whips his gun out graciously on screen is ‘ _I'_ _d tap that_ ’.

Peter lets out no shocked sound at the revelation. Instead, he just sighs tiredly, and runs a hand down his face.

Ned notices, and asks, “You tired? We could continue tomorrow if you wanna sleep.”

Peter feels something in his stomach twist and turn at the tenderness of Ned’s tone. He dismisses it as hunger and says as much, “Nah, just hungry.”

Ned brightens up.

“There’s still some leftovers from dinner!”

Peter smiles, and ignores the intensifying feeling blossoming in the bottom of his stomach.

He must be really hungry.

 

 

 

 

Peter is 16 when he finds out he likes Ned. 

“Betty asked me out!”

Too bad Ned doesn’t like Peter back.

Peter swallows, “She did?” 

Ned grins, and Peter can practically feel the happiness emitting from Ned. It’s been a while since he has smiled like that, Peter idly thinks. Ned’s father had recently died of a heart attack, which was sadly something that ran in the family - his grandfather had died by the same cause. Though Ned hadn’t completely succumbed to the grief of losing a father, he hadn’t exactly been truly happy in a long while. 

“Yeah! Holy shit... I’m glad _she_ asked _me_ , because I’m pretty sure I’d chicken out if I’d ever try to ask her. Oh _man…_ Peter. What if she regrets asking me out, and then cancels because-”

“She’s not gonna do that. She asked you, remember?” Peter reassures him, and stops Ned from going down the usual spiral of self deprecation. 

“Yeah- I’m- you’re right.” 

Peter smiles tightly, and feels his heart in his throat.

“Thanks, man. I don’t know what I’d do without you as my best friend.” Ned grins. 

 _Best friend_. Of course.  

“Don’t think about it.” Peter tells him, letting the smile fall along with his heart. 

Peter exhales, and turns his attention to his notification-less phone.

 

 

 

 

Peter is 17 when Michelle asks him out. 

Peter turns her down.

“I’m not really in a good place... emotionally. I’m sorry, MJ.”

She doesn’t shed a tear; he doesn’t expect her to cry, either. Instead, she just gives him a sad smile, and tells him, “Fair enough.”

Maybe in another lifetime, they’d get together with little problems. If he thinks about it enough, he can imagine it easily. Michelle Jones, renowned activist and politician, with her explosive yet calm personality. Peter Parker, lesser known scientist and well-known Avenger, with his reckless yet responsible personality. Together, they’d balance each other out, yet still retain a certain electricity that was hard to find elsewhere. In another lifetime, they’d be together and they’d be so in love it would be sickening for those looking in through the window.

But this isn’t another lifetime, this is here and now, and Peter can’t get together with someone who deserves better than a guy who can’t get over his straight best friend.

And so, he grabs her hand by the fingertips, and says, “Ask me again another time.”

He expects her to roll her eyes and walk away.

He should known better than to even try to predict Michelle Jones. 

MJ catches his eye, giving him that look that makes him feel like she’s seeing through his soul. She briefly glances down to where his fingertips still hold onto her, and then promptly looks up again. 

“I will.” 

(When he touches her, he doesn’t feel his heart jump the way it does whenever he touches Ned.

It feels like he’s holding a mannequin, holding something that’s unable to give him that human warmth he so often craves.)

 

 

 

 

Peter is 19 when he finds out he’s in love with Ned. 

Incidentally, the same day he finds out that he loves Ned is also the same day when he finds out that Ned is engaged to Betty.

“Wow,” Peter breathes out, heart racing faster than it has ever done before, “that’s, uh… that’s-”

“- young?” Ned finishes for him with a wide smile on his face, “I know. That’s what our parents said. Don’t worry, though. We’re not gonna get married straight away.”

“That’s not- I mean, yeah, it’s young, but… uh… just, wow.”

Ned mistakes his speechlessness for something that it’s not.

“Aw, I knew you’d be happy for me!”

“Yeah,” Peter coughs out, “yeah, I- congratulations. Can’t say I’m surprised, though.”

Peter has long since learnt the secret trick to faking a good smile. It’s easy to imagine himself kissing Ned instead of Betty, and it’s easy to let himself get lost in a daydream. 

It’s easy to smile when you’re dreaming. 

Ned suddenly seems bashful.

“I know I just told you that we won’t be getting married anytime soon… but I want you to know that you’re my only pick for best man… if you wanna be, of course.” 

Peter’s smile falters for only a heartbeat before he responds, “Dude, of course I’ll be your best man.” 

When Ned hugs Peter, he feels like his heart is going to burst.

Then, when Peter gets home, he pictures Ned and Betty together at the aisle.

He throws up in the bathroom because of how much his stomach hurts from imagining it, and is too afraid to think about how he’ll react when the day truly comes.

He’ll have to get over Ned. Death by heartbreak wasn’t something Peter wanted on his gravestone, after all. 

(It’s never that easy.)

 

 

 

 

Peter is 22 when Ned marries Betty. 

Peter never manages to get over Ned before the wedding. Not in the way he would’ve liked to, anyways. He is Ned’s best man, and has to watch when the man he loves gets married to his high school sweetheart. 

Years ago, Peter thought he wouldn’t ever be able to stomach the wedding. Luckily, he had forgotten one big detail about weddings: 

They were _so_ boring.

The ceremony in itself is so tedious that it’s actually borderlining being _ridiculously_ boring. He won’t complain, though, because it is the tediousness of the ceremony that gets Peter through it.  

Well. That, and the whispers amongst the crowd that he can hear due to his enhanced hearing.

“She’s so pretty,” Morgan Stark whispers to his father, “I wanna marry someone like her when I grow up.”

Peter’s eyes are still fixed on the altar when he hears Tony snort, “As long as you don’t steal her away from Ted, then sure.”

Morgan giggles, “His name isn’t Ted!”

“Really? Huh. Could’ve sworn it was Ted.”

“ _Ned_ , dad, not _Ted!_ ”

“Quiet, you two,” Pepper hisses from the corner of her mouth, “and don’t listen to your dad. He’s just being silly. He has known Ned’s name longer than you’ve been alive.”

Peter’s eyes flicker over to the Stark family, and he locks eyes with Tony. He winks at Peter before turning his attention forwards once more. Peter smiles.

(It’s the only real smile that graces his face that day. His other smiles that day are nothing more than grimaces that feel more painful on his face than anything else he has ever had to endure.)

 

 

 

 

Peter is 24 when he gets together with Michelle.

It begins when Michelle starts working as Pepper’s assistant. Unconsciously, he grows closer to her. In the beginning, their evolving relationship is subtle. He starts showing up more at Pepper’s workplace, always using Morgan and Spider-Man as an excuse to visit her at the tower. 

Slowly but surely, they start going out. At first, they’re just getting coffee on her lunch break. But then coffee evolves to having actual lunch together, and then lunch evolves to dinner, and suddenly, they’re in that awkward in-between stage where neither of them know what they’re supposed to do. 

Peter suspects he’d be a bit more forward were his heart set on her from the beginning. But it isn’t, because Ned still unknowingly owns his fractured heart. And so, the awkwardness prevails. 

The awkwardness evaporates, however, the moment they’re both kidnapped. Their kidnapping seems to be part of a grander scheme to get Iron Man out of his retirement. Luckily for Peter, these amateurs don’t know that Iron Man won’t have to intervene.

Spider-Man knocks them all out with practiced ease. And since he does it when they’re facing away from him, they never get to see the face of Spider-Man.

_BANG!_

He twirls around, and quickly launches himself forward to knock out the last bad guy that had taken out a gun. He watches the man fall to the ground, and revels in the brief victory.

Suddenly, Peter’s eyes flutter, and his hand goes up to his stomach. He looks down, and-  

“Oh. I’m bleeding.” 

“PETER!”

Peter drifts off listening to Michelle’s screams. She just screams his name, _Peter_ , over and over until he can’t hear or see anything but darkness.

He awakens some time later in an all-too-familiar hospital bed. Usually, he wakes up with either Tony or May by his side. This time, it’s Michelle Jones that sits next to his bed, a book in her firm grasp.

She hears him stir, and slowly puts the book down.

“You’re awake.”

“I am.”

When she kisses him after his near-death experience, he thinks that maybe he can learn how to love her.

He soon discovers that he _can_ , indeed, learn how to love her. Sadly, loving her is not the problem.

(The problem is that he still loves Ned, too.)

 

 

 

 

Peter is 25 when he tells May that MJ is now his girlfriend.

She doesn’t react the way he expects her to.

May blinks, “Oh! That’s… I’m so happy that you’ve been able to find love, sweetie… but…”

“But what?”

She gnaws on her lip, and places one hand on her hip, “I don’t know… it just always seemed to me that you were kind of emotionally unavailable.”

The corner of Peter’s lip twitches upwards, and he can’t contain himself from teasing her, “Emotionally unavailable. What, because of my Spider-Man gig? Think I love the city more than I could love another person?”

May rolls her eyes.

“Oh, shut it, you." 

She never brings it up again.

(May had been _so_ close to the truth. _Too_ close.

Years later, when she is gone and lays in her grave next to Ben, he wishes she would’ve pushed for the truth more.)

 

 

 

 

Peter is 28 when Betty first gets pregnant. 

Nine months later, the birth goes off without a hitch. They name the baby after Betty’s deceased brother, Bennett.

Or, rather, they name him Bennett on paper.

“Ben…” Betty whispers, her gentle hand placed on Bennett’s back. He lays on her chest, resting after exhausting himself from screaming his lungs out. Ned sits on a chair that’s placed next to Betty’s bed. He looks at them with such love that makes Peter’s heart ache. 

“I thought his name was Bennett?” Ned asks in a low whisper. It’s clear that he doesn’t want to wake up his son.

“It is… but… he does sort of feel like a Ben, doesn’t he?” 

Peter closes his eyes briefly.

“He does.”

The nickname Ben sticks. 

And _oh_ , isn’t _that_ ironic.

Peter’s gaze never lingers for too long on the child he’s supposed to think of as his godson. It’s far too painful; he has the name of his uncle and is the son of the man he is still in love with. 

He wishes he could look at Bennett for more than 10 seconds at a time without feeling like he’s about to throw up.

When they ask Peter if he wants to hold Bennett, Peter declines, telling them he doesn’t want to be held accountable if he accidentally lets him fall to the ground. 

No one seems to remember that Peter’s uncle was called Ben. No one except Ned, that is.

“I know that the name Ben means a lot to you… I’m sorry. It’s just… it fits him. Y’know?” he says, and then looks at him with those warm eyes that Peter is far too fond of, and suddenly it’s much harder to say no to holding the baby. 

They all laugh when they see Peter hold Bennett, telling him to stop shaking so much. 

(Everyone forgets that Peter is only human. Because holding Bennett is like holding a fire. He lights up in his arms, and no human can hold onto fire without being burned.)

 

 

 

 

Peter is 29 when he tells another living soul that he’s in love with Ned.

Tony scrunches his eyebrows, “I thought you were together with Michelle.”

Tony has yet to be granted the privilege of calling Michelle by her nickname.

“That’s… yeah. I am.”

Understanding washes over Tony like a tidal wave.

“Oh Peter…”

“Please don’t tell anyone.” 

He’s nearly 30 years old - and yet, here he is, in the arms of someone he looks up to like a father, crying his heart out because the man he loves won’t ever love him back.

(He never got to tell May. She had died at the age of 65 of something he’d never even thought possible - old age. 

The worst part about it was that she hadn’t even been that old. That fact stung more than anything else.)

 

 

 

 

Peter is 35 when Betty dies in labour. 

Ned’s head rests on his shoulder, and he cries silently whilst he holds his baby close.

“What’s her name?” Peter softly asks, trying to distract Ned from Betty’s death.

He knows the distraction is shit, but what else can he do?

Ned doesn’t even try to smile when he answers in a low voice, “Elizabeth.” 

They sit in silence for a while, until Ned breaks the silence. 

“How am I gonna tell Ben about this? How the fuck am I supposed to tell him his mom is… is…” 

“Do you want me to do it?” Peter softly asks.

“No. I… he has to hear it from me. Thank you, though. For everything. For being here.” 

Peter doesn’t think it’s appropriate to smile at a time like this. And yet, he finds himself unable to prevent the small smile that tugs at his lips when Ned tells him, “I love you, man. I don’t think I’d be able to do this without you.”

(Peter’s first thought when he hears that Betty is dead is ‘maybe now he’ll love me back’. It’s cruel and selfish, and he pushes the thought away before it manages to fester and infect the rest of his brain.

He never tells anyone, and no one ever asks.)

 

 

 

 

Peter is 44 when Ned dies of a heart attack. 

They had seen it coming. Both Ned’s father and grandfather had died of the same cause, so when it happens, it doesn’t come as a shock.

It doesn’t make anything less difficult, nor does it make it hurt any less. 

After the funeral is over and everyone has left, Peter looks down at Ned’s grave. He lays next to Betty, something he had asked for years prior.

He hears the footsteps of someone familiar approaching him, but doesn’t turn around to greet them.

“You loved him, didn’t you? And not just as a friend.”

His silence speaks for him, he knows.

“I’m sorry,” Peter mumbles, “I should’ve told you. It… wasn’t fair to you.”

MJ slowly grabs his hand, her fingers and palm soft to the touch. Her gaze doesn’t fall on Ned’s gravestone. Instead, she fixes her gaze on Betty’s.

“It’s okay. I’ve always known.”

“You have?”

“Mhm… Maybe that’s why I asked you out.” 

“What do you mean?”

“I loved Betty, you loved Ned. They loved each other. I figured we should stay together, wallow in our self-pity without involving other people.”

Peter turns his head towards her, his heart beating hard and fast against his ribcage.

“I never knew that.”

“Of course you didn’t. I’m the perceptive one in this relationship, not you.”

Silence once more.

And then… “I’m sorry,” _for your loss_ , he never says, but implies.  

When they return to the front of the graveyard, they spot their own daughter Mayday comforting a distressed Bennett. 

“For all it’s worth,” he turns his body towards MJ, eyes still fixed upon the kids, “I don’t think I’d be able to function without you. This parenting thing is a lot harder than it looks. God knows how Tony and May were able to put up with me.” 

Peter counts it as a small victory when it manages to make MJ smile, if only for a second.

(It’s a small victory in a day full of losses.)

 

 

 

 

Peter is 50 when he tells Ned he loves him. 

He stands in front of his grave and holds a bouquet of flowers - red, black and blue roses. He crouches down and stares at the words that mark the date of his death. 

“Some kind of hero, I am,” he begins his speech, “unable to find the courage when you were alive to tell you that I love you.” 

He pats the soil, evening it out slightly before he lays the flowers on top, and reflects on everything that has happened.

He doesn’t reflect on what could have happened. He’d been told long ago by Tony that you should never ponder about ‘what if’s. The future is now; the past is long gone.

Peter takes a deep breath, “I remember wishing, once, that I wanted to be the one to raise your kids. Maybe I should’ve been more specific about my wish… or, maybe it would’ve turned out the same. You were always the more religious one. Not me.” 

He pauses. Should he say it?

 

(“ _Come on, man,_ ” Ned had whined, “ _what if Betty kisses me and I’m shit at it?_ ”

Peter had taken a sharp breath, “ _You haven’t even asked her out yet._ ”

“ _And when I do, I wanna be prepared! MJ told me that Betty says she thinks I’m cute. Cute! That’s practically admitting that she has a crush on me back._ ”)

 

He decides that he should.

“I sometimes wonder if you liked me back, but couldn’t admit to yourself that you were anything but straight… because of your parents.”

 

(“ _What if your mom comes in?_ ” Peter had countered, nervous by how close Ned’s face was to his.

“ _She won’t,_ ” he’d grinned, “ _she’s at a my aunt’s house, probably gossiping about the rest of our family._ ”)

 

“Do you remember? When you told me that they weren’t necessarily homophobic… they’d just prefer if you weren’t gay yourself?”

Peter closes his eyes.

 

(“ _Should we close our eyes?_ ”

“ _Y_ _-yeah. I think so._ ”)

 

“You were so gentle. Not just that day - just in general. With your kids. With Bennett and Elizabeth. With my kid, too. With Mayday.”

 

(His fingertips on the nape of Peter’s neck. 

His nose bumping into Peter’s nose.

His lips, gentle and sweet, against Peter’s lips.)

 

“You pulled away first. Did you know that your eyes never betray you? Because they don’t. Both your kids inherited your eyes, you know? Not the color - just… the way they look at their loved ones. The way they look at me, some days, as if I’m their father now. They may still call me ‘Uncle Peter’, but they look at me the way they used to look at you.”

 

(Peter’s heart had thumped loudly against his chest, and he’d pulled closer, closer _closer-_

And then Ned had pulled away. Peter had felt oddly cold, though the temperature in the room had been anything but. 

“ _What d’you think?_ ”

Ned’s eyes had betrayed nothing. There was no glint, no _shine_ in his eyes the way it shone when he looked at Betty.  

“ _Good. It’s- you’re- you’re good._ ” Peter had lied. He hadn’t been good. He’d been _wonderful_. Too bad Ned would’ve ran for the hills had Peter told him that. 

The day after, Betty asked Ned out. The rest is history.)

 

“I guess, what I’m trying to say is… I love you. And I think… I think I can finally accept that you never loved me back. At least, not the way I loved you.” 

Peter’s eyes never waver away from the gravestone. He isn’t quite sure why; it’s not like it will ever talk back. When he feels a slight gust of wind, he lets himself believe for a moment that it was Ned’s way of answering him. 

“Are you done yet, uncle Peter? I wanna go.”

He turns around, smiling softly. Elizabeth Leeds taps her foot against the ground and sighs dramatically.

“Just finished. Let’s go. We gotta pick up Mayday at school, and then we’re gonna go visit Bennett.”

Elizabeth perks up. 

“Oh! Are we gonna do something fun? Please tell me we are seeing Morgan too, please, please, pleaaase!” 

Peter picks her up with ease, and tosses her over his shoulder. He hears her squeal of joy and laughter, and her laughter has always been infectious, so he can’t help but laugh as well. 

“ _Uncle Peter!_ ”  

When he casts one last glance at the gravestone, he finds that he doesn’t find that the sight unbearable anymore. 

 _Acceptance_. That’s what the feeling is.  

Peter grins, and walks away with a laughing Elizabeth on his shoulder.

 

_fin_

**Author's Note:**

> :D 
> 
> sorry lol


End file.
